The Archangel Hotel, Mme. Gypsy’s asylum, was the most elegant building on the Quai St. Michel.
A person who pays her fortnight’s board in advance is treated with consideration at this hotel.
Mme. Alexandre, who had been a handsome woman, was now stout, laced till she could scarcely breathe, always over-dressed, and fond of wearing a number of flashy gold chains around her fat neck.
She had bright eyes and white teeth; but, alas, a red nose. Of all her weaknesses, and Heaven knows she had indulged in every variety, only one remained; she loved a good dinner, washed down with plenty of good wine.
She also loved her husband; and, about the time M. Patrigent was leaving the hospital, she began to be worried that her “little man” had not returned to dinner. She was about to sit down without him, when the hotel-boy cried out:
“Here is monsieur.”
And Fanferlot appeared in person.
Three years before, Fanferlot had kept a little office of secret intelligence; Mme. Alexandre was a trader without a license in perfumery and toilet articles, and, finding it necessary to watch some of her suspicious customers, engaged Fanferlot’s services; this was the origin of their acquaintance.
If they went through the marriage ceremony for the good of the mayoralty and the church, it was because they imagined it would, like a baptism, wash out the sins of the past.
Upon this momentous day, Fanferlot gave up his secret intelligence office, and entered the police, where he had already been occasionally employed, and Mme. Alexandre retired from trade.
Uniting their savings, they hired and furnished the “Archangel,” which they were now carrying on prosperously well, esteemed by their neighbors, who were ignorant of Fanferlot’s connection with the police force.
“Why, how late you are, my little man!” she exclaimed, as she dropped her knife and fork, and rushed forward to embrace him.
He received her caresses with an air of abstraction.
“My back is broken,” he said. “I have been the whole day playing billiards with Evariste, M. Fauvel’s valet, and allowed him to win as often as he wished, a man who does not know what ‘the pool’ is! I became acquainted with him yesterday, and now I am his best friend. If I wish to enter M. Fauvel’s service in Antonin’s place, I can rely upon M. Evariste’s good word.”
“What, you be an office messenger? you?”
“Of course I would. How else am I to get an opportunity of studying my characters, if I am not on the spot to watch them all the time?”
“Then the valet gave you no news?”
“He gave me none that I could make use of, and yet I turned him inside out, like a glove. This banker is a remarkable man; you don’t often meet with one of his sort nowadays. Evariste says he has not a single vice, not even a little defect by which his valet could gain ten sous. He neither smokes, drinks, nor plays; in fact, he is a saint. He is worth millions, and lives as respectably and quietly as a grocer. He is devoted to his wife, adores his children, is lavishly hospitable, and seldom goes into society.”
“Then his wife is young?”
“She must be about fifty.”
Mme. Alexandre reflected a minute, then asked:
“Did you inquire about the other members of the family?”
“Certainly. The younger son is in the army. The elder son, Lucien, lives with his parents, and is as proper as a young lady; so good, indeed, that he is stupid.”
“And what about the niece?”
“Evariste could tell me nothing about her.”
Mme. Alexandre shrugged her fat shoulders.
“If you have discovered nothing, it is because there is nothing to be discovered. Still, do you know what I would do, if I were you?”
“Tell me.”
“I would consult with M. Lecoq.”
Fanferlot jumped up as if he had been shot.
“Now, that’s pretty advice! Do you want me to lose my place? M. Lecoq does not suspect that I have anything to do with the case, except to obey his orders.”
“Nobody told you to let him know you were investigating it on your own account. You can consult him with an air of indifference, as if you were not at all interested; and, after you have got his opinion, you can take advantage of it.”
The detective weighed his wife’s words, and then said:
“Perhaps you are right; yet M. Lecoq is so devilishly shrewd, that he might see through me.”
“Shrewd!” echoed Mme. Alexandre, “shrewd! All of you at the police office say that so often, that he has gained his reputation by it: you are just as sharp as he is.”
“Well, we will see. I will think the matter over; but, in the meantime, what does the girl say?”
The “girl” was Mme. Nina Gypsy.
In taking up her abode at the Archangel, the poor girl thought she was following good advice; and, as Fanferlot had never appeared in her presence since, she was still under the impression that she had obeyed a friend of Prosper’s. When she received her summons from M. Patrigent, she admired the wonderful skill of the police in discovering her hiding-place; for she had established herself at the hotel under a false, or rather her true name, Palmyre Chocareille.
Artfully questioned by her inquisitive landlady, she had, without any mistrust, confided her history to her.
Thus Fanferlot was able to impress the judge with the idea of his being a skilful detective, when he pretended to have discovered all this information from a variety of sources.
“She is still upstairs,” answered Mme. Alexandre. “She suspects nothing; but to keep her in her present ignorance becomes daily more difficult. I don’t know what the judge told her, but she came home quite beside herself with anger. She wanted to go and make a fuss at M. Fauvel’s; then she wrote a letter which she told Jean to post for her; but I kept it to show you.”
“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “you have a letter, and did not tell me before? Perhaps it contains the clew to the mystery. Give it to me, quick.”
Obeying her husband, Mme. Alexandre opened a little cupboard, and took out a letter which she handed to him.
“Here, take it,” she said, “and be satisfied.”
Considering that she used to be a chambermaid, Palmyre Chocareille, since become Mme. Gypsy, wrote a good letter.
It bore the following address, written in a free, flowing hand:
FOR M. L. DE CLAMERAN,
Forge-Master, Hotel du Louvre.
To be handed to M. Raoul de Lagors.
(In great haste.)
“Oh, ho!” said Fanferlot, accompanying his exclamation with a little whistle, as was his habit when he thought he had made a grand discovery. “Oh, ho!”
“Do you intend to open it?” questioned Mme. Alexandre.
“A little bit,” said Fanferlot, as he dexterously opened the envelope.
Mme. Alexandre leaned over her husband’s shoulder, and they both read the following letter:
“MONSIEUR RAOUL--Prosper is in prison, accused of a robbery which he never committed. I wrote to you three days ago.”
“What!” interrupted Fanferlot, “this silly girl wrote, and I never saw the letter?”
“But, little man, she must have posted it herself, the day she went to the Palais de Justice.”
“Very likely,” said Fanferlot propitiated. He continued reading:
“I wrote to you three days ago, and have no reply. Who will help Prosper if his best friends desert him? If you don’t answer this letter, I shall consider myself released from a certain promise, and without scruple will tell Prosper of the conversation I overheard between you and M. de Clameran. But I can count on you, can I not? I shall expect you at the Archangel day after to-morrow, between twelve and four.
“NINA GYPSY”
The letter read, Fanferlot at once proceeded to copy it.
“Well!” said Mme. Alexandre, “what do you think?”
Fanferlot was delicately resealing the letter when the door of the hotel office was abruptly opened, and the boy twice whispered, “Pst! Pst!”
Fanferlot rapidly disappeared into a dark closet. He had barely time to close the door before Mme. Gypsy entered the room.
The poor girl was sadly changed. She was pale and hollow-cheeked, and her eyes were red with weeping.
On seeing her, Mme. Alexandre could not conceal her surprise.
“Why, my child, you are not going out?”
“I am obliged to do so, madame; and I come to ask you to tell anyone that may call during my absence to wait until I return.”
“But where in the world are you going at this hour, sick as you are?”
For a moment Mme. Gypsy hesitated.
“Oh,” she said, “you are so kind that I am tempted to confide in you; read this note which a messenger just now brought to me.”
“What!” cried Mme. Alexandre perfectly aghast: “a messenger enter my house, and go up to your room!”
“Is there anything surprising in that?”
“Oh, oh, no! nothing surprising.”
And in a tone loud enough to be heard in the closet she read the note:
“A friend of Prosper who can neither receive you, nor present himself at your house, is very anxious to speak to you. Be in the stage-office opposite the Saint Jacques tower, to-night at nine precisely, and the writer will approach, and tell you what he has to say.
“I have appointed this public place for the rendezvous so as to relieve your mind of all fear.”
“And you are going to this rendezvous?”
“Certainly, madame.”
“But it is imprudent, foolish; it is a snare to entrap you.”
“It makes no difference,” interrupted Gypsy. “I am so unfortunate already that I have nothing more to dread. Any change would be a relief.”
And, without waiting to hear any more, she went out. The door had scarcely closed upon Mme. Gypsy, before Fanferlot bounced out of the closet.
The mild detective was white with rage, and swore violently.
“What is the meaning of this?” he cried. “Am I to stand by and have people walking over the Archangel, as if it were a public street?”
Mme. Alexandre stood trembling, and dared not speak.
“Was ever such impudence heard of before!” he continued. “A messenger comes into my house, and goes upstairs without being seen by anybody! I will look into this. And the idea of you, Mme. Alexandre, you, a sensible woman, being idiotic enough to persuade that little viper not to keep the appointment!”
“But, my dear--”
“Had you not sense enough to know that I would follow her, and discover what she is attempting to conceal? Come, make haste, and help me, so that she won’t recognize me.”
In a few minutes Fanferlot was completely disguised by a thick beard, a wig, and one of those long linen blouses worn by dishonest workmen, who go about seeking labor, and, at the same time, hoping they may not find any.
“Have you your handcuffs?” asked the solicitous Mme. Alexandre.
“Yes, yes: make haste and put that letter to M. de Clameran in the post-office, and--and keep good watch.”
And without waiting for his wife’s reply, who cried out, “Good luck!” Fanferlot darted into the street.
Mme. Gypsy had ten minutes’ start of him; but he ran up the street he knew she must have taken, and overtook her near the Change Bridge.
She was walking with the uncertain gait of a person who, impatient to be at a rendezvous, has started too soon, and is obliged to occupy the intervening time; she would walk very rapidly, then retrace her footsteps, and proceed slowly.
On Chatelet Place she strolled up and down several times, read the theatre-bills, and finally took a seat on a bench. One minute before a quarter of nine, she entered the stage-office, and sat down.
A moment after, Fanferlot entered; but, as he feared that Mme. Gypsy might recognize him in spite of his heavy beard, he took a seat at the opposite end of the room, in a dark corner.
“Singular place for a conversation,” he thought, as he watched the young woman. “Who in the world could have made this appointment in a stage-office? Judging from her evident curiosity and uneasiness, I could swear she has not the faintest idea for whom she is waiting.”
Meanwhile, the office was gradually filling with people. Every minute a man would shriek out the destination of an omnibus which had just arrived, and the bewildered passengers would rush in to get tickets, and inquire when the omnibus would leave.
As each new-comer entered, Gypsy would tremble, and Fanferlot would say, “This is he!”
Finally, as the Hotel-de-Ville clock was striking nine, a man entered, and, without going to the ticket-window, walked directly up to Gypsy, bowed, and took a seat beside her.
He was a medium-sized man, rather stout, with a crimson face, and fiery-red whiskers. His dress was that of a well-to-do merchant, and there was nothing in his manner or appearance to excite attention.
Fanferlot watched him eagerly.
“Well, my friend,” he said to himself, “in future I shall recognize you, no matter where we meet; and this very evening I will find out who you are.”
Despite his intent listening, he could not hear a word spoken by the stranger or Gypsy. All he could do was to judge by their pantomime and countenances, what the subject of their conversation might be.
When the stout man bowed and spoke to her, the girl looked so surprised that it was evident she had never seen him before. When he sat down by her, and said a few words, she jumped up with a frightened look, as if seeking to escape. A single word and look made her resume her seat. Then, as the stout man went on talking, Gypsy’s attitude betrayed great apprehension. She positively refused to do something; then suddenly she seemed to consent, when he stated a good reason for her so doing. At one moment she appeared ready to weep, and the next her pretty face was illumined by a bright smile. Finally, she shook hands with him, as if she was confirming a promise.
“What can all that mean?” said Fanferlot to himself, as he sat in his dark corner, biting his nails. “What an idiot I am to have stationed myself so far off!”
He was thinking how he could manage to approach nearer without arousing their suspicions, when the fat man arose, offered his arm to Mme. Gypsy, who accepted it without hesitation, and together they walked toward the door.
They were so engrossed with each other, that Fanferlot thought he could, without risk, follow them; and it was well he did; for the crowd was dense outside, and he would soon have lost them.
Reaching the door, he saw the stout man and Gypsy cross the pavement, approach a hackney-coach, and enter it.
“Very good,” muttered Fanferlot, “I’ve got them now. There is no use of hurrying any more.”
While the coachman was gathering up his reins, Fanferlot prepared his legs; and, when the coach started, he followed in a brisk trot, determined upon following it to the end of the earth.
The cab went up the Boulevard Sebastopol. It went pretty fast; but it was not for nothing that Fanferlot had won the name of “Squirrel.” With his elbows glued to his sides, and holding his breath, he ran on.
By the time he had reached the Boulevard St. Denis, he began to get breathless, and stiff from a pain in his side. The cabman abruptly turned into the Rue Faubourg St. Martin.
But Fanferlot, who, at eight years of age, had been familiar with every street in Paris, was not to be baffled: he was a man of resources. He seized the springs of the coach, raised himself up by the strength of his wrists, and hung on behind, with his legs resting on the axle-tree of the back wheels. He was not quite comfortable, but then, he no longer ran the risk of being distanced.
“Now,” he chuckled, behind his false beard, “you may drive as fast as you please, M. Cabby.”
The man whipped up his horses, and drove furiously along the hilly street of the Faubourg St. Martin.
Finally the cab stopped in front of a wine-store, and the driver jumped down from his seat, and went in.
The detective also left his uncomfortable post, and crouching in a doorway, waited for Gypsy and her companion to get out, with the intention of following closely upon their heels.
Five minutes passed, and still there were no signs of them.
“What can they be doing all this time?” grumbled the detective.
With great precautions, he approached the cab, and peeped in.
Oh, cruel deception! it was empty!
Fanferlot felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice-water over him; he remained rooted to the spot with his mouth stretched, the picture of blank bewilderment.
He soon recovered his wits sufficiently to burst forth in a volley of oaths, loud enough to rattle all the window-panes in the neighborhood.
“Tricked!” he said, “fooled! Ah! but won’t I make them pay for this!”
In a moment his quick mind had run over the gamut of possibilities, probable and improbable.
“Evidently,” he muttered, “this fellow and Gypsy entered one door, and got out of the other; the trick is simple enough. If they resorted to it, ‘tis because they feared being watched. If they feared being watched, they have uneasy consciences: therefore--”
He suddenly interrupted his monologue as the idea struck him that he had better attempt to find out something from the driver.
Unfortunately, the driver was in a very surly mood, and not only refused to answer, but shook his whip in so threatening a manner that Fanferlot deemed it prudent to beat a retreat.
“Oh, Lord,” he muttered, “perhaps he and the driver are one and the same!”
But what could he do now, at this time of night? He could not imagine. He walked dejectedly back to the quay, and it was half-past eleven when he reached his own door.
“Has the little fool returned?” he inquired of Mme. Alexandre, the instant she opened the door for him.
“No; but here are two large bundles which have come for her.”
Fanferlot hastily opened the bundles.
They contained three calico dresses, some coarse shoes, and some linen caps.
“Well,” said the detective in a vexed tone, “now she is going to disguise herself. Upon my word, I am getting puzzled! What can she be up to?”
When Fanferlot was sulkily walking down the Faubourg St. Martin, he had fully made up his mind that he would not tell his wife of his discomfiture.
But once at home, confronted with a new fact of a nature to negative all his conjectures, his vanity disappeared. He confessed everything--his hopes so nearly realized, his strange mischance, and his suspicions.
They talked the matter over, and finally decided that they would not go to bed until Mme. Gypsy, from whom Mme. Alexandre was determined to obtain an explanation of what had happened, returned. At one o’clock the worthy couple were about giving over all hope of her re-appearance, when they heard the bell ring.
Fanferlot instantly slipped into the closet, and Mme. Alexandre remained in the office to received Gypsy.
“Here you are at last, my dear child!” she cried. “Oh, I have been so uneasy, so afraid lest some misfortune had happened!”
“Thanks for your kind interest, madame. Has a bundle been sent here for me?”
Poor Gypsy’s appearance had strikingly changed; she was very sad, but not as before dejected. To her melancholy of the last few days, had succeeded a firm and generous resolution, which was betrayed in her sparkling eyes and resolute step.
“Yes, two bundles came for you; here they are. I suppose you saw M. Bertomy’s friend?”
“Yes, madame; and his advice has so changed my plans, that, I regret to say, I must leave you to-morrow.”
“Going away to-morrow! then something must have happened.”
“Oh! nothing that would interest you, madame.”
After lighting her candle at the gas-burner, Mme. Gypsy said “Good-night” in a very significant way, and left the room.
“And what do you think of that, Mme. Alexandre?” questioned Fanferlot, emerging from his hiding-place.
“It is incredible! This girl writes to M. de Clameran to meet her here, and then does not wait for him.”
“She evidently mistrusts us; she knows who I am.”
“Then this friend of the cashier must have told her.”
“Nobody knows who told her. I shall end by believing that I am among a gang of thieves. They think I am on their track, and are trying to escape me. I should not be at all surprised if this little rogue has the money herself, and intends to run off with it to-morrow.”
“That is not my opinion; but listen to me: you had better take my advice, and consult M. Lecoq.”
Fanferlot meditated awhile, then exclaimed.
“Very well; I will see him, just for your satisfaction; because I know that, if I have discovered nothing, neither has he. But, if he undertakes to be domineering, it won’t do; for, if he shows his insolence to me, I will make him know his place!”
Notwithstanding this brave speech, the detective passed an uneasy night, and at six o’clock the next morning he was up--it was necessary to rise very early if he wished to catch M. Lecoq at home--and, refreshed by a cup of strong coffee, he directed his steps toward the dwelling of the celebrated detective.
Fanferlot the Squirrel certainly was not afraid of his patron, as he called him; for he started out with his nose in the air, and his hat cocked on one side.
But by the time he reached the Rue Montmartre, where M. Lecoq lived, his courage had vanished; he pulled his hat over his eyes, and hung his head, as if looking for relief among the paving-stones. He slowly ascended the steps, pausing several times, and looking around as if he would like to fly.
Finally he reached the third floor, and stood before a door decorated with the arms of the famous detective--a cock, the symbol of vigilance--and his heart failed him so that he had scarcely the courage to ring the bell.
The door was opened by Janouille, M. Lecoq’s old servant, who had very much the manner and appearance of a grenadier. She was as faithful to her master as a watch-dog, and always stood ready to attack anyone who did not treat him with the august respect which she considered his due.
“Well, M. Fanferlot,” she said, “you come in time for once in your life. Your patron wants to see you.”
Upon this announcement, Fanferlot was seized with a violent desire to retreat. By what chance could Lecoq want anything of him?
While he thus hesitated, Janouille seized him by the arm, and pulled him in, saying:
“Do you want to take root there? Come along, your patron is waiting for you.”
In the middle of a large room curiously furnished, half library and half green-room, was seated at a desk the same person with gold spectacles, who had said to Prosper at the police-office, “Have courage.”
This was M. Lecoq in his official character.
Upon Fanferlot’s entrance, as he advanced respectfully, bowing till his backbone was a perfect curve, M. Lecoq laid down his pen, and said, looking sharply at him:
“Ah, here you are, young man. Well, it seems that you haven’t made much progress in the Bertomy case.”
“Why,” murmured Fanferlot, “you know--”
“I know that you have muddled everything until you can’t see your way out; so that you are ready to give up.”
“But, M. Lecoq, it was not I----”
M. Lecoq arose, and walked up and down the room: suddenly he confronted Fanferlot, and said, in a tone of scornful irony:
“What would you think, Master Squirrel, of a man who abuses the confidence of those who employ him, who reveals just enough to lead the prosecution on the wrong scent, who sacrifices to his own foolish vanity the cause of justice and the liberty of an unfortunate man?”
Fanferlot started back with a frightened look.
“I should say,” he stammered, “I should say--”
“You would say this man ought to be punished, and dismissed from his employment; and you are right. The less a profession is honored, the more honorable should those be who belong to it. And yet you have been false to yours. Ah! Master Fanferlot, we are ambitious, and we try to make the police force serve our own views! We let Justice stray her way, and we go ours. One must be a more cunning bloodhound than you are, my friend, to be able to hunt without a huntsman. You are too self-reliant by half.”
“But, patron, I swear--”
“Silence! Do you pretend to say that you did your duty, and told all to the judge of instruction? Whilst others were informing against the cashier, you undertook to inform against the banker. You watched his movements: you became intimate with his valet.”
Was M. Lecoq really angry, or pretending to be? Fanferlot, who knew him well, was puzzled to know whether all this indignation was real.
“If you were only skilful,” he continued, “but no: you wish to be master, and you are not fit to be a journeyman.”
“You are right, patron,” said Fanferlot, piteously, for he saw that it was useless for him to deny anything. “But how could I go about an affair like this, where there was not even a trace or sign to start from?”
M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders.
“You are an ass! Why, don’t you know that on the very day you were sent for with the commissary to verify the robbery, you held--I do not say certainly, but very probably held--in your great stupid hands the means of knowing which key had been used when the money was stolen?”
“How! What!”
“You want to know, do you? I will tell you. Do you remember the scratch you discovered on the safe-door? You were so struck by it, that you exclaimed directly you saw it. You carefully examined it, and were convinced that it was a fresh scratch, only a few hours old. You thought, and rightly too, that this scratch was made at the time of the theft. Now, with what was it made? Evidently with a key. That being the case, you should have asked for the keys both of the banker and the cashier. One of them would have had some particles of the hard green paint sticking to it.”
Fanferlot listened with open mouth to this explanation. At the last words, he violently slapped his forehead with his hand, and cried out:
“Imbecile! Imbecile!”
“You have rightly named yourself,” said M. Lecoq. “Imbecile! This proof stares you right in the face, and you don’t see it! This scratch is the sole and only clew to work the case upon, and you must go and lose the traces of it. If I find the guilty party, it will be by means of this scratch; and I am determined that I will find him.”
At a distance the Squirrel very bravely abused and defied M. Lecoq; but, in his presence, he yielded to the influence which this extraordinary man exercised upon all who approached him.
This exact information, these minute details of all his secret movements, and even thoughts, so upset his mind that he could not think where and how M. Lecoq had obtained them. Finally he said, humbly:
“You must have been looking up this case, patron?”
“Probably I have; but I am not infallible, and may have overlooked some important evidence. Take a seat, and tell me all you know.”
M. Lecoq was not the man to be hoodwinked, so Fanferlot told the exact truth, a rare thing for him to do. However as he reached the end of his statement, a feeling of mortified vanity prevented his telling how he had been fooled by Gypsy and the stout man.
Unfortunately for poor Fanferlot, M. Lecoq was always fully informed on every subject in which he interested himself.
“It seems to me, Master Squirrel, that you have forgotten something. How far did you follow the empty coach?”
Fanferlot blushed, and hung his head like a guilty school-boy.
“Oh, patron!” he cried, “and you know about that too! How could you have----”
But a sudden idea flashed across his brain: he stopped short, bounded off his chair, and cried:
“Oh! I know now: you were the large gentleman with red whiskers.”
His surprise gave so singular an expression to his face that M. Lecoq could not restrain a smile.
“Then it was you,” continued the bewildered detective; “you were the large gentleman at whom I stared, so as to impress his appearance upon my mind, and I never recognized you! Patron, you would make a superb actor, if you would go on the stage; but I was disguised, too--very well disguised.”
“Very poorly disguised; it is only just to you that I should let you know what a failure it was, Fanferlot. Do you think that a heavy beard and a blouse are a sufficient transformation? The eye is the thing to be changed--the eye! The art lies in being able to change the eye. That is the secret.”
This theory of disguise explained why the lynx-eyed Lecoq never appeared at the police-office without his gold spectacles.
“Then, patron,” said Fanferlot, clinging to his idea, “you have been more successful than Mme. Alexandre; you have made the little girl confess? You know why she leaves the Archangel, why she does not wait for M. de Clameran, and why she bought calico dresses?”
“She is following my advice.”
“That being the case,” said the detective dejectedly, “there is nothing left for me to do, but to acknowledge myself an ass.”
“No, Squirrel,” said M. Lecoq, kindly, “you are not an ass. You merely did wrong in undertaking a task beyond your capacity. Have you progressed one step since you started this affair? No. That shows that, although you are incomparable as a lieutenant, you do not possess the qualities of a general. I am going to present you with an aphorism; remember it, and let it be your guide in the future: A man can shine in the second rank, who would be totally eclipsed in the first.”
Never had Fanferlot seen his patron so talkative and good-natured. Finding his deceit discovered, he had expected to be overwhelmed with a storm of anger; whereas he had escaped with a little shower that had cooled his brain. Lecoq’s anger disappeared like one of those heavy clouds which threaten in the horizon for a moment, and then are suddenly swept away by a gust of wind.
But this unexpected affability made Fanferlot feel uneasy. He was afraid that something might be concealed beneath it.
“Do you know who the thief is, patron?”
“I know no more than you do, Fanferlot; and you seem to have made up your mind, whereas I am still undecided. You declare the cashier to be innocent, and the banker guilty. I don’t know whether you are right or wrong. I started after you, and have only reached the preliminaries of my search. I am certain of but one thing, and that is, that a scratch was on the safe-door. That scratch is my starting-point.”
As he spoke, M. Lecoq took from his desk and unrolled an immense sheet of drawing-paper.
On this paper was photographed the door of M. Fauvel’s safe. The impression of every detail was perfect. There were the five movable buttons with the engraved letters, and the narrow, projecting brass lock: The scratch was indicated with great exactness.
“Now,” said M. Lecoq, “here is our scratch. It runs from top to bottom, starting from the hole of the lock, diagonally, and, observe, from left to right; that is to say, it terminates on the side next to the private staircase leading to the banker’s apartments. Although very deep at the key-hole, it ends off in a scarcely perceptible mark.”
“Yes, patron, I see all that.”
“Naturally you thought that this scratch was made by the person who took the money. Let us see if you were right. I have here a little iron box, painted with green varnish like M. Fauvel’s safe; here it is. Take a key, and try to scratch it.”
“The deuce take it!” he said after several attempts, “this paint is awfully hard to move!”
“Very hard, my friend, and yet that on the safe is still harder and thicker. So you see the scratch you discovered could not have been made by the trembling hand of a thief letting the key slip.”
“Sapristi!” exclaimed Fanferlot, stupefied: “I never should have thought of that. It certainly required great force to make the deep scratch on the safe.”
“Yes, but how was that force employed? I have been racking my brain for three days, and only yesterday did I come to a conclusion. Let us examine together, and see if our conjectures present enough chances of probability to establish a starting-point.”
M. Lecoq abandoned the photograph, and, walking to the door communicating with his bedroom, took the key from the lock, and, holding it in his hand, said:
“Come here, Fanferlot, and stand by my side: there; very well. Now suppose that I want to open this door, and you don’t want me to open it; when you see me about to insert the key, what would be your first impulse?”
“To put my hands on your arm, and draw it toward me so as to prevent your introducing the key.”
“Precisely so. Now let us try it; go on.” Fanferlot obeyed; and the key held by M. Lecoq, pulled aside from the lock, slipped along the door, and traced upon it a diagonal scratch, from top to bottom, the exact reproduction of the one in the photograph.
“Oh, oh, oh!” exclaimed Fanferlot in three different tones of admiration, as he stood gazing in a revery at the door.
“Do you begin to understand now?” asked M. Lecoq.
“Understand, patron? Why, a child could understand it now. Ah, what a man you are! I see the scene as if I had been present. Two persons were present at the robbery; one wished to take the money, the other wished to prevent its being taken. That is clear, that is certain.”
Accustomed to triumphs of this sort, M. Lecoq was much amused at Fanferlot’s enthusiasm.
“There you go off, half-primed again,” he said, good-humoredly: “you regard as sure proof a circumstance which may be accidental, and at the most only probable.”
“No, patron, no! a man like you could not be mistaken: doubt no longer exists.”
“That being the case, what deductions would you draw from our discovery?”
“In the first place, it proves that I am correct in thinking the cashier innocent.”
“How so?”
“Because, at perfect liberty to open the safe whenever he wished to do so, it is not likely that he would have brought a witness when he intended to commit the theft.”
“Well reasoned, Fanferlot. But on this supposition the banker would be equally innocent: reflect a little.”
Fanferlot reflected, and all of his animation vanished.
“You are right,” he said in a despairing tone. “What can be done now?”
“Look for the third rogue, or rather the real rogue, the one who opened the safe, and stole the notes, and who is still at large, while others are suspected.”
“Impossible, patron--impossible! Don’t you know that M. Fauvel and his cashier had keys, and they only? And they always kept these keys in their pockets.”
“On the evening of the robbery the banker left his key in the secretary.”
“Yes; but the key alone was not sufficient to open the safe; the word also must be known.”
M. Lecoq shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“What was the word?” he asked.
“Gypsy.”
“Which is the name of the cashier’s grisette. Now keep your eyes open. The day you find a man sufficiently intimate with Prosper to be aware of all the circumstances connected with this name, and at the same time on a footing with the Fauvel family which would give him the privilege of entering M. Fauvel’s chamber, then, and not until then, will you discover the guilty party. On that day the problem will be solved.”
Self-sufficient and vain, like all famous men, M. Lecoq had never had a pupil, and never wished to have one. He worked alone, because he hated assistants, wishing to share neither the pleasures of success nor the pain of defeat.
Thus Fanferlot, who knew his patron’s character, was surprised to hear him giving advice, who heretofore had only given orders.
He was so puzzled, that in spite of his pre-occupation he could not help betraying his surprise.
“Patron,” he ventured to say, “you seem to take a great interest in this affair, you have so deeply studied it.”
M. Lecoq started nervously, and replied, frowning:
“You are too curious, Master Squirrel; be careful that you do not go too far. Do you understand?”
Fanferlot began to apologize.
“That will do,” interrupted M. Lecoq. “If I choose to lend you a helping hand, it is because it suits my fancy to do so. It pleases me to be the head, and let you be the hand. Unassisted, with your preconceived ideas, you never would have found the culprit; if we two together don’t find him, my name is not Lecoq.”
“We shall certainly succeed if you interest yourself in the case.”
“Yes, I am interested in it, and during the last four days I have discovered many important facts. But listen to me. I have reasons for not appearing in this affair. No matter what happens, I forbid your mentioning my name. If we succeed, all the success must be attributed to you. And, above all, don’t try to find out what I choose to keep from you. Be satisfied with what explanations I give you. Now, be careful.”
These conditions seemed quite to suit Fanferlot.
“I will obey your instructions, and be discreet.”
“I shall rely upon you. Now, to begin, you must carry this photograph to the judge of instruction. I know M. Patrigent is much perplexed about this case. Explain to him, as if it were your own discovery, what I have just shown you; repeat for his benefit the scene we have acted, and I am convinced that this evidence will determine him to release the cashier. Prosper must be at liberty before I can commence my operations.”
“Of course, patron, but must I let him know that I suspect anyone besides the banker or cashier?”
“Certainly. Justice must not be kept in ignorance of your intention of following up this affair. M. Patrigent will tell you to watch Prosper; you will reply that you will not lose sight of him. I myself will answer for his being in safe-keeping.”
“Suppose he asks me about Gypsy?”
M. Lecoq hesitated for a moment.
“Tell him,” he finally said, “that you persuaded her, in the interest of Prosper, to live in a house where she can watch someone whom you suspect.”
Fanferlot was joyously picking up his hat to go, when M. Lecoq checked him by waving his hand, and said:
“I have not finished. Do you know how to drive a carriage and manage horses?”
“Why, patron, can you ask this of a man who used to be a rider in the Bouthor Circus?”
“Very well. As soon as the judge dismisses you, return home immediately, make yourself a wig and the complete dress of a valet; and, having dressed yourself, take this letter to the Agency on Delorme Street.”
“But, patron--”
“There must be no but, my friend; the agent will send you to M. de Clameran, who is looking for a valet, his man having left him yesterday.”
“Excuse me if I venture to suggest that you are making a mistake. This Clameran is not the cashier’s friend.”
“Why do you always interrupt me?” said M. Lecoq imperiously. “Do what I tell you, and don’t disturb your mind about the rest. Clameran is not a friend of Prosper’s, I know; but he is the friend and protector of Raoul de Lagors. Why so? Whence the intimacy of these two men of such different ages? That is what I must find out. I must also find out who this forge-master is who lives in Paris, and never goes to attend to his furnaces. A jolly fellow, who takes it into his head to live at the Hotel du Louvre, in the midst of a tumultuous, ever-changing crowd, is a fellow difficult to watch. Through you I will have an eye upon him. He has a carriage, you are to drive it; and you will soon be able to give me an account of his manner of life, and of the sort of people with whom he associates.”
“You shall be obeyed, patron.”
“Another thing. M. de Clameran is irritable and suspicious. You will be presented to him under the name of Joseph Dubois. He will demand your certificate of good character. Here are three, which state that you have lived with the Marquis de Sairmeuse and the Count de Commarin, and that you have just left the Baron de Wortschen, who went to Germany the other day. Now keep your eyes open; be careful of your dress and manners. Be polite, but not excessively so. And, above all things, don’t be obsequious; it might arouse suspicion.”
“I understand, patron. Where shall I report to you?”
“I will call on you every day. Until I tell you differently, don’t step foot in this house; you might be followed. If anything important should happen, send a note to your wife, and she will inform me. Go, and be prudent.”
The door closed on Fanferlot as M. Lecoq passed into his bedroom.
In the twinkling of an eye he had divested himself of the appearance of a police officer. He took off his stiff cravat and gold spectacles, and removed the close wig from his thick black hair. The official Lecoq had disappeared, leaving in his place the genuine Lecoq whom nobody knew--a handsome young man, with a bold, determined manner, and brilliant, piercing eyes.
But he only remained himself for an instant. Seated before a dressing-table covered with more cosmetics, paints, perfumes, false hair, and other unmentionable shams, than are to be found on the toilet-tables of our modern belles, he began to undo the work of nature, and make himself a new face.
He worked slowly, handling his brushes with great care. But in an hour he had accomplished one of his daily masterpieces. When he had finished, he was no longer Lecoq: he was the large gentleman with red whiskers, whom Fanferlot had failed to recognize.
“Well,” he said, casting a last look in the mirror, “I have forgotten nothing: I have left nothing to chance. All my plans are fixed; and I shall make some progress to-day, provided the Squirrel does not waste time.”
But Fanferlot was too happy to waste a minute. He did not run, he flew, toward the Palais de Justice.
At last he was now able to convince someone that he, Fanferlot, was a man of wonderful perspicacity.
As to acknowledging that he was about to obtain a triumph with the ideas of another man, he never thought of it. It is generally in perfect good faith that the jackdaw struts in the peacock’s feathers.
His hopes were not deceived. If the judge was not absolutely and fully convinced, he admired the ingenuity and shrewdness of the whole proceeding, and complimented the proud jackdaw upon his brilliancy.
“This decides me,” he said, as he dismissed Fanferlot. “I will make out a favorable report to-day; and it is highly probable that the accused will be released to-morrow.”
He began at once to write out one of these terrible decisions of “Not proven,” which restores liberty, but not honor, to the accused man; which says that he is not guilty, but does not say he is innocent.
“Whereas there do not exist sufficient charges against the accused, Prosper Bertomy, in pursuance of Article 128 of the Criminal Code, we hereby declare that we find no grounds for prosecution against the aforesaid prisoner at this present time; and we order that he shall be released from the prison where he is confined, and set at liberty by the jailer,” etc.
“Well,” he said to the clerk, “here is another one of those crimes which justice cannot clear up. The mystery remains to be solved. This is another file to be stowed away among the archives of the record-office.”
And with his own hand he wrote on the cover of the bundle of papers relating to Prosper’s case, the number of the package, File No. 113.
